When Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov returns to watch his team play in Brooklyn tomorrow, will he see any new players on his team?

That’s the question that remains as the NBA approaches today’s trade deadline, and one that had the Nets smack in the middle of the annual rumor mill as they prepared to face the Bucks last night.

“I don’t know,” Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said before the game when asked if he thought his team would look the same after today’s deadline.

Because of Prokhorov’s willingness to spend, and because of their hole at power forward, the Nets have been linked to the top player available, Atlanta’s Josh Smith — who also happens to play power forward. But while Yahoo! Sports reported the Nets, along with the Bucks and Suns, are the three likeliest destinations for Smith, it still seems unlikely the Nets would be able to pull off such a deal.

As talks on a four-way deal that included Utah and Charlotte lost
momentum on Monday, Denver and New Jersey were constructing contingency
plans with several other teams to try to keep alive hopes of a trade
that would send Carmelo Anthony(notes) to the Nets, league sources told
Yahoo! Sports.

New Jersey and Denver were moving from including Utah’s Andrei
Kirilenko(notes) and Charlotte’s Boris Diaw(notes) in the trade
packages, front-office sources said, and trying to find trade partners
in both the Eastern and Western conferences. Denver and New Jersey were
trying to line up new scenarios that still would result with Anthony in
New Jersey and Derrick Favors(notes) and Nets draft picks in Denver,
sources said.

One of the final significant hurdles for a blockbuster four-team trade
that would send Carmelo Anthony(notes) to the New Jersey Nets hinges on
the All-Star forward’s willingness to agree to a contract extension
with the Nets, two front-office executives involved in the deal told
Yahoo! Sports.

The New Jersey Nets and owner Mikhail Prohkorov have begun the application process for changing the team’s name.

Nets spokesman Barry Baum said today the team filed paperwork with the
National Basketball Association earlier this week. If accepted, the
change would become official before the 2012-13 season, when the Nets
plan to move to Brooklyn’s new Barclays Center.

“The do*****ents are already submitted to the NBA office,” Prokhorov said
in an interview with Forbes Russia magazine. “The name change will
happen in 2012.”

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has his first NBA coach in New
Jersey: ESPN analyst Avery Johnson.

After breaking into the coaching business under Mark Cuban in Dallas and
interviewing with New Orleans and Atlanta in recent weeks, Johnson on
Wednesday struck a verbal agreement to coach Prokhorov’s Nets.

Although the sides might need the rest of the week to finalize what
sources close to the situation say will be a three-year contract,
Johnson confirmed the agreement in a Wednesday afternoon interview with
ESPN’s Hannah Storm.

Rod Thorn will officially begin his coaching search with the first
interview this weekend, but the real question is how flexible the Nets
president might be about his candidates’ timetables, and how competitive
he might have to get when these coaches already have concrete offers.

Tom Thibodeau is the one Thorn will watch most closely: The Boston
assistant coach — who is everybody’s flavor of the month since the
Celtics’ postseason resurgence — is on the verge of being offered a job
from the New Orleans Hornets.

Just one day after the sale of the New Jersey Nets to Russian tycoon
Mikhail Prokhorov was approved by the NBA, team president Rod Thorn
quietly started the team’s coaching search.

League sources told FanHouse that Thorn inquired about Avery Johnson and
his interest in the Nets job through his representatives on Wednesday.
The former Dallas coach has already interviewed for openings in
Philadelphia and New Orleans and loo

Former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy isn’t interested in coaching the
Nets, or any other team, according to his brother, Magic coach Stan Van
Gundy.

Before coaching the Magic in a playoff game against the Bobcats
Wednesday night, Stan Van Gundy told Fanhouse.com that it is clear to
him that his TV brother is unlikely to be pacing any sideline in the
near future.